184
PARTISAN REVIEW
well should be, as he really wanted to be) was the
cicerone:
Tansy
was too intelligent to be deceived, but she was also too kind to appear
undeceived; but in any case the ruse would actually work, and ro–
mance be begotten or preserved in the shape of a sort of mutual
dStral body of inattention outside which Tansy's own intelligence and
delighted personal response no doubt operated independently, yet out
of which, as if it were a god-like cloud, Roderick could imagine his
most banal utterance sounding useful and informative, such as just
now, he had planned to say something like, "Temple of Vespasian,"
or "Doric and Corinthian," or even "Bulwer-Lytton."
But the guide had been waiting for them, sitting between two
ruinations, and in the twinkling of .an eye they were in his clutches.
And as a matter of fact he half remembered Tansy saying that you
couldn't escape those clutches, you were legally bound to take a
guide. He'd left the bargaining this time entirely up to Tansy, even
though carried on in English. But Tansy was fortunately too caught
up in her delight at the immediate situation to perceive Roderick's
shame which had not, however, inspired in him any antipathy to
the
~uide
himself, who vaguely reminded Roderick of
his
eldest
brother. He was a swarthy, swift-moving, eagle-nosed fellow, of me–
dium height, with a flashing eye, threadbare clothes, and a military
walk.
"Pompeii was a school of immorality. No hypocrite life like
ours," he was announcing thoughtfully as he marched along a little
ahead of them, "Blue mountains, blue sky, blue sea, and a white
marble city."
The Fairhavens smiled. The mountains and sky were indeed
blue, now the thunderstorm had rolled away, and could one have
seen it from this point, no doubt the Bay of Naples would have ap–
peared blue too. But, there was something extraordinarily eerie about
the way the guide had said this to them, Roderick thought, as they
followed him through the truncated and darkened stumps of the in–
nundated and exhumed city, adding, proudly smiling to Tansy, "Si,
I am Pompeiian!" as though to him this old Cuernavaca-cum-Acapul–
co of the Romans, and manufacturer of fish sauce and millstones,
were not a heap of ruins but were still here, gleaming, alive, peopled
and thriving, and with the sea, now withdrawn miles away, at their
very doorstep; "After Pompeii was destroyed," he went on rapidly,
